Founder’s Quote Daily

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The great leading objects of the federal government … are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.” —Benjamin Franklin (1747)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which [the Constitution] has established … are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.” —Thomas Jefferson (1823)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” —Thomas Jefferson (1823)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last. … A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” —Alexander Hamilton (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —George Washington (1793)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The Alien bill proposed in the Senate is a monster that must forever disgrace its parents.” —James Madison (1798)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” —Thomas Jefferson (1824)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon … has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.” —James Madison (1798)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.” —George Mason (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams (1814)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it.” —Benjamin Franklin (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.” —Noah Webster (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.” —John Adams (1797)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” —John Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become honorable by being necessary.” —Nathan Hale (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Wish not so much to live long as to live well.” —Benjamin Franklin (1746)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson (1798)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is a just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend they always reason right about the means of promoting it.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” —Thomas Jefferson (1822)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people. ~James Madison, House of Representatives, Federalist No. 57 — 1788

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If individuals be not influenced by moral principles; it is in vain to look for public virtue; it is, therefore, the duty of legislators to enforce, both by precept and example, the utility, as well as the necessity of a strict adherence to the rules of distributive justice.” —James Madison (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1813)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.” —Benjamin Rush (1773)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.” —James Wilson (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” —Thomas Jefferson (1820)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” —Samuel Adams (1779)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject.” —George Washington (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful.” —Fisher Ames (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is not honorable to take mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice.” —Thomas Jefferson (1790)

Founder’s Quote: Immigration

Patriot Post – [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” —George Washington (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” —Alexander Hamilton (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” —Thomas Jefferson (1803)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.” —Mercy Warren (1805)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.” —George Washington (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The Declaration of Independence … [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” —Thomas Jefferson (1774)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. … These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed.” —Benjamin Franklin (1774)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.” —John Adams (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is … highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” —George Washington (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.” —James Madison (1826)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary.” —Fisher Ames (1807)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions … if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon … has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.” —James Madison (1798)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, and in continual ill-humour.” —Benjamin Franklin (1771)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.” —George Washington (1793)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights.” —Benjamin Franklin

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” —Thomas Paine (1791)

Patriot Post – “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” —James Madison (1829)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?” —Patrick Henry (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.” —Thomas Jefferson (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” —George Washington (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses.” —James Madison (1792)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.” —James Madison (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.” —James Wilson (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.” ~Samuel Adams

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it.” —James Madison (1824)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patrtio Post –  “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” —James Madison (1829)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled.” —Mercy Warren (1805)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Social Scientist Trashes Synod’s Master Plan, by Jules Gomes

By Jules Gomes, Church Militant – An eminent social scientist is arguing that Pope Francis’ methodology for his pet project on synodality is empirically vague and open to manipulation by ideologically driven synodal experts… “I have grave concerns as a social scientist about the methodological mess that has characterized this synod’s massive, unwieldy data-collection-and-analysis venture,” writes Dr. Mark Regnerus …

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” —James Madison (1787)

Fouder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“Duty is our, results are God’s.” ~John Quincy Adams

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of its political cares.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of its political cares.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” –Joseph Story

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” —George Washington (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.” —Thomas Jefferson (1811)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I rejoice in a belief that intellectual light will spring up in the dark corners of the earth; that freedom of enquiry will produce liberality of conduct.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.” —Thomas Jefferson (1823)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” —Thomas Jefferson (1822)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper’s ally.” —Fisher Ames (1807)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.” —John Adams (1797)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.” —Oliver Ellsworth (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.” —Benjamin Rush (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote – Independence

Patriot Post – “If we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” —George Washington (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post -“If individuals be not influenced by moral principles; it is in vain to look for public virtue.” —James Madison (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.” —Thomas Jefferson (1823)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Judges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.” —John Adams (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman’s.” —Thomas Jefferson (1786)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Fonder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patrito Post – “The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1797)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” —James Madison (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects commmitted to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” —John Marshall (1819)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —George Washington (1793)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” —George Washington (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” —Thomas Jefferson (1822)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” —James Madison (1792)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If individuals be not influenced by moral principles; it is in vain to look for public virtue.” —James Madison (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.” —John Adams (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties.” —Thomas Jefferson (1813)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The consciousness of having discharged that duty which we owe to our country is superior to all other considerations.” —George Washington (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.” —Thomas Jefferson (1825)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy.” —Benjamin Franklin (1774)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.” —Samuel Adams (1772)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” —Zacharia Johnson (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue.” —John Witherspoon (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.” —Thomas Jefferson (1811)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly.” —George Washington (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of its political cares.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” —Thomas Jefferson (1822)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “[Judges’] minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.” —John Adams (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” —George Washington (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” —Thomas Jefferson (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.” —John Adams (1756)

Founer’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Men must be ready, they must pride themselves and be happy to sacrifice their private pleasures, passions and interests, nay, their private friendships and […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations …”

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.” —Thomas Jefferson (1797)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I am persuaded that a firm union is as necessary to perpetuate our liberties as it is to make us respectable.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.” —Alexander Hamilton (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.” —Benjamin Franklin (1747)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government… That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.” —Oliver Ellsworth (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin (1759)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.” —John Adams (1797)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station [of president] filled by […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” —Thomas Jefferson (1820)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.” —John Adams (1797)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” —Samuel Adams (1781)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To restore … harmony … to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy.” —Benjamin Franklin (1774)

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier serves as a symbolic grave for all war dead whose remains have not been found or identified… The Tomb began with one unknown service member from World War I, and today is the grave of three unidentified service members. Its meaning has evolved to represent the memory of all military members throughout American history.

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.” —George Washington (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.” —George Washington (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.” —Thomas Jefferson (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families.” —John Adams (1778)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I do recommend and assign Thursday … next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.” —Thomas Jefferson (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.” —Alexander Hamilton (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Tis folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its Independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance, …

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1813)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” —John Adams (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.” —Thomas Paine (1792)

Founder’s Quote

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.” ― Thomas Paine

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station [of President] filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” —Thomas Jefferson (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that forcze, you are inevitably ruined.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.” —Alexander Hamilton (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.” —John Adams (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin (1759)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it.” —Benjamin Franklin (1789)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual. … This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.” —Thomas Paine (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “In the formation of our constitution the wisdom of all ages is collected — the legislators are antiquity are consulted, as well as the opinions and interests of the millions who are concerned. It short, it is an empire of reason.” —Noah Webster (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it.” —James Madison (1824)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” —John Adams (1770)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.” —George Washington (1793)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” —John Adams (1808)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” —John Adams (1808)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.” —Alexander Hamilton (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” —James Madison (1792)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The natural cure for an ill-administration … is a change of men.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.” —James Madison (1791)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.” —Benjamin Rush (1773)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.” —Benjamin Rush (1773)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” —James Madison (1829)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last. … A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” —Alexander Hamilton (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post:  “If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last. … A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” —Alexander Hamilton (1794)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” —Thomas Jefferson (1820)

Founder’s Quote

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” —Thomas Paine (1777)

Founder’s Quote

“But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet […]

Founder’s Quote

“One single object … [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.” —Thomas Jefferson (1825)

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences […]

Founder’s Quote

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold […]

Founder’s Quote

“But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet […]

Founder’s Quote

“The Army … is a dangerous instrument to play with.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men […]

Founder’s Quote

“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.” —Alexander Hamilton […]

Founder’s Quote

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1809)

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here […]

Founder’s Quote

“Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.” —Samuel Adams (1778)

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege […]

Founder’s Quote

“The right of freely examining public characters and measures … has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.” —James Madison (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds […]

Founder’s Quote

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, […]

Founder’s Quote

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited […]

Founder’s Quote

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom […]

Founder’s Quot

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.” —George Washington […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to […]

Founder’s Quote

“The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for […]

Founder’s Quote

“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy […]

Founder’s Quote

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” —John Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.” —Alexander […]

Founder’s Quote

“The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon […]

Founder’s Quote

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds […]

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest […]

Founder’s Quote

“The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.” —George Washington (1748)

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any free government can be permanent, where the public worship of God, and the […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.” —James Madison

Founder’s Quote

“Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?” —Thomas Jefferson […]

Founder’s Quote

“Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state.” —George […]

Founder’s Quote

“The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from […]

Founder’s Quote

“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern […]

Founder’s Quote

“The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable.” —Thomas Jefferson (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation […]

Founder’s Quote

“The present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes.” —Alexander Hamilton (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” —Thomas Paine (1777)

Founder’s Quote

“The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station [of President] filled by characters pre-eminent for […]

Founder’s Quote

“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; […]

Founder’s Quote

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” —John Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Founder’s Quote

“Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.” —Thomas Jefferson (1825)

Founder’s Quote

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“I hope some future day will bring me the happiness of seeing my family again collected under our own roof, happy in ourselves and blessed in […]

Founder’s Quote

“To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” —George Washington (1790)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Determine never to be idle. … It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.” —Thomas Jefferson (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, […]

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast … would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it.” —Thomas Jefferson (1814)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “The present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes — rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.” —Alexander Hamilton (1802)

Founder’s Quote

Patriot Post – “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” —Samuel Adams (1781)

Founder’s Quote

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“The Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place […]

Founder’s Quote

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1809)

Founder’s Quote

“It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have […]

Founder’s Quote

“Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Founder’s Quote

“[The judicial branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do […]

Founder’s Quote

“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.” —James Madison, Federalist No. 55 (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“One single object … [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.” —Thomas Jefferson (1825)

Founder’s Quote

“The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their own sphere […]

Founder’s Quote

“The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their own sphere […]

Founder’s Quote

“However weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; […]

Founder’s Quote

“The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families.” —John Adams (1778)

Founder’s Quote

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual […]

Founder’s Quote

“[The judicial branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive […]

Founder’s Quote

“Personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds […]

Foundr’s Quote

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend […]

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted […]

Founder’s Quote

“However weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; […]

Founder’s Quote

“Jealousy, and local policy mix too much in all our public councils for the good government of the Union. In a word, the confederation appears to […]

Founder’s Quote

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual […]

Founder’s Quote

“A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul […]

Founder’s Quote

“Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation […]

Founder’s Quote

“The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure than they have […]

Founder’s Quote

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“The foundation on which all [constitutions] are built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every preeminence but that annexed to legal office, and […]

Founder’s Quote

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from […]

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him […]

Founder’s Quote

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least […]

Founder’s Quote

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be […]

Founder’s Quote

“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness […]

Founder’s Quote

“Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin (1759)

Founder’s Quote

“History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and […]

Founder’s Quote

“The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere […]

Founder’s Quote

“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken […]

Founder’s Quote

[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to […]

Founder’s Quote

“A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.” —Alexander Hamilton (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious […]

Founder’s Quote

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1809)

Founder’s Quote

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual […]

Founder’s Quote

“The present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes.” —Alexander Hamilton (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights […]

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” —Thomas Paine […]

Founder’s Quote

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

“I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.” —Thomas Jefferson […]

Founder’s Quote

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; […]

Founder’s Quote

“The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with.” —George Washington (1783)

Founder’s Quote

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is important also to consider, that the surest means of avoiding war is to be prepared for it in peace.” —Joseph Story (1833)

Founder’s Quote

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“As on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so on the other, it is equally evident that to be […]

Founder’s Quote

“No compact among men … can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do […]

Founder’s Quote

“Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They […]

Founder’s Quote

“Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which […]

Founder’s Quote

“We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same […]

Founder’s Quote

“The confidence of the people will easily be gained by a good administration. This is the true touchstone.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“The second office of this government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery.” —Thomas Jefferson (1797)

Founder’s Quote

“The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding […]

Founder’s Quote

“An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers […]

Founder’s Quote

“To restore … harmony … to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot.” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They […]

Founder’s Quote

“But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal […]

Founder’s Quote

“Have you something to do to-morrow; do it to-day.” —Benjamin Franklin (1742)

Founder’s Quote

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

“There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here […]

Founder’s Quote

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be […]

Founder’s Quote

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on […]

Founder’s Quote

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with […]

Founder’s Quote

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal […]

Founder’s Quote

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government… Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious […]

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, […]

Founder’s Quote

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

“In times of peace the people look most to their representatives; but in war, to the executive solely.” —Thomas Jefferson (1810)

Founder’s Quote

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we […]

Founder’s Quote

“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or […]

Founder’s Quote

“There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an […]

Founder’s Quote

“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise […]

Founder’s Quote

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade […]

Founder’s Quote

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“How much more do they deserve our reverence and praise, whose lives are devoted to the formation of institutions, which, when they and their children are […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. […]

Founder’s Quote

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do […]

Founder’s Quote

“In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for […]

Founder’s Quote

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as […]

Founder’s Quote

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other.” —Thomas Jefferson (1791)

Founder’s Quote

“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for […]

Founder’s Quote

“There are certain social principles in human nature, from which we may draw the most solid conclusions with respect to the conduct of individuals and of […]

Founder’s Quote

“Equal laws protecting equal rights; the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.” —James Madison (1820)

Founder’s Quote

“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing […]

Founder’s Quote

“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing […]

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, […]

Founder’s Quote

“In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example … of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in […]

Founder’s Quote

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive […]

Founder’s Quote

“Excessive taxation … will carry reason and reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.” —Thomas Jefferson (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they […]

Founder’s Quote

“It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to […]

Founder’s Quote

“In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason.” —James Madison, Federalist 55

Founder’s Quote

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. […]

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of […]

Founder’s Quote

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” —Thomas Paine […]

Founder’s Quote

“I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must […]

Founder’s Quote

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish […]

Founder’s Quote

“Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.” —John Adams (1826)

Founder’s Quote

“History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” —George Washington (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“The safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of war to other […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation […]

Founder’s Quote

“But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet […]

Founder’s Quote

“When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they […]

Founder’s Quote

“In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; […]

Founder’s Quote

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” —John Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men […]

“My ardent desire is, and my aim has been … to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States […]

Founder’s Quote

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which […]

Founder’s Quote

“Congress shall make no law … prohibiting … the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”—Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“On the other hand, the duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath […]

Founder’s Quote

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” —Thomas Paine (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“The powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” —James Madison […]

Founder’s Quote

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe.” —Noah Webster (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.” —Thomas Jefferson […]

Founder’s Quote

“Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of […]

Founder’s Quote

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; […]

Founder’s Quote

“Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with […]

Founder’s Quote

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom […]

Founder’s Quote

“The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” —Zacharia Johnson (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as […]

Founder’s Quote

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people […]

Founder’s Quote

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“However weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited […]

Founder’s Quote

“Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.” —Thomas Jefferson (1825)

Founder’s Quote

“Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he […]

Founder’s Quote

“No Wall of words … can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the […]

Founder’s Quote

“In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon … has ever been justly deemed the only effectual […]

Founder’s Quote

“A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.” —Thomas Jefferson […]

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he […]

Founder’s Quote

“Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those […]

Founder’s Quote

“Your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are […]

Founder’s Quote

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, […]

Founder’s Quote

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” –Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” —James […]

Founder’s Quote

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither […]

Founder’s Quote

“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” —Thomas Paine […]

Founder’s Quote

“Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” —First Amendment

Founder’s Quote

“No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at […]

Founder’s Quote

“Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.” —John Adams (1826)

Founder’s Quote

“No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.” —Alexander Hamilton (1774)

Founder’s Quote

“Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.” —Benjamin Rush (1783)

Founder’s Quote

“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do […]

Founder’s Quote

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

“There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. ‘Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which […]

Founder’s Quote

“Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” —John Adams (1808)

Founder’s Quote

“I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the […]

Founder’s Quote

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” —Fourth Amendment

Founder’s Quote

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a […]

Founder’s Quote

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” —James Madison (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive […]

Founder’s Quote

“A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.” —Alexander Hamilton (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited […]

Founder’s Quote

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited […]

Founder’s Quote

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” —Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Founder’s Quote

“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” —John Adams (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.” —James Madison (1791)

Founder’s Quote

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Founder’s Quote

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither […]

Founder’s Quote

“This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people […]

Founder’s Quote

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” —John Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?” —Thomas Jefferson […]

Founder’s Quote

“The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world […]

Founder’s Quote

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction.” —John Witherspoon (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here […]

Founder’s Quote

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom […]

Founder’s Quote

“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.” —James Madison (1791)

Founder’s Quote

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for […]

Founder’s Quote

“In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if […]

Founder’s Quote

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon […]

Founder’s Quote

“It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to […]

Founder’s Quote

“The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money […]

Founder’s Quote

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” —James Madison (1829)

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.” —George Washington […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as […]

Founder’s Quote

“A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species.” —James Madison […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the […]

Founder’s Quote

“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.” —Alexander Hamilton […]

Founder’s Quote

“The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom […]

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction.” —John Witherspoon (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as […]

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; […]

Founder’s Quote

“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, […]

Founder’s Quote

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.” —George Washington (1748)

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle […]

Founder’s Quote

“It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to […]

Founder’s Quote

“We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals.” —George Washington (1786)

Founder’s Quote

“The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity…” —Alexander Hamilton in [Federalist No. 70]

Founder’s Quote

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he […]

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men […]

Founder’s Quote

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” —Thomas Jefferson (1821)

Founder’s Quote

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1809)

Founder’s Quote

“America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.” —George Washington […]

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; […]

Founder’s Quote

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to […]

Founder’s Quote

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish […]

Founder’s Quote

“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, […]

Founder’s Quote Daily

“The construction applied … to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power … ought not to be construed as […]

Founder’s Quote

“The construction applied … to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power … ought not to be construed as […]

Founder’s Quote

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here […]

Founder’s Quote

“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is […]

Founder’s Quote

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“The bosom of America is open to receive … the oppressed and persecuted of all nations … if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear […]

Founder’s Quote

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

“A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.” —Alexander Hamilton (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our […]

Founder’s Quote

“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would … most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and […]

Founder’s Quote

“May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in […]

Founder’s Quote

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. […]

Founder’s Quote

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People […]

Founder’s Quote

“I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know upon […]

Founder’s Quote

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness […]

Founder’s Quote

“I have not yet begun to fight!” —John Paul Jones (1779)

Founder’s Quote

“The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government… Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious […]

Founder’s Quote

“[The Judiciary] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm […]

Founder’s Quote

“Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors.” —Justice Joseph Story […]

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men […]

Founder’s Quote

“If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they […]

Founder’s Quote

“In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. […]

Founder’s Quote

“Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation […]

Founder’s Quote

“I do recommend and assign Thursday … next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which […]

Founder’s Quote

“The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.” —Fisher Ames (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams (1815)

Founder’s Quote

“A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least […]

Founder’s Quote

“Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose […]

Founder’s Quote

“Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life […]

Founder’s Quote

“I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people.” —Fisher Ames […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“No mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping […]

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual […]

Founder’s Quote

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be […]

Founder’s Quote

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)

Founder’s Quote

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.”—Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

“If a nation expects to be ignorant — and free — in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do […]

Founder’s Quote

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

“When People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate — look to his character.” —Noah […]

Founder’s Quote

“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue […]

Founder’s Quote

“We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by […]

Founder’s Quote

“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for […]

Founder’s Quote

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” —James Madison, Federalist No. 10 (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“The Constitution … is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.” —James Madison (1791)

Founder’s Quote

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights […]

Founder’s Quote

“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” —George Washington (1753)

Founder’s Quote: Separation of Powers

Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the […]

Founder’s Quote

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish […]

Founder’s Quote

“In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence … the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign […]

Founder’s Quote

“With those who wish to think amiss of me, I have learned to be perfectly indifferent; but where I know a mind to be ingenuous, and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

The construction applied…to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power…ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited […]

Founder’s Quote

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious or political.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.” —Alexander Hamilton (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“Excessive taxation … will carry reason and reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.” —Thomas Jefferson (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” —James Madison (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Judges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not […]

Founder’s Quote

“No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted […]

Founder’s Quote

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.” —Alexander Hamilton […]

Founder’s Quote

“Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be […]

Founder’s Quote

“A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be […]

Founder’s Quote

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” —James […]

Founder’s Quote

“Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government.” —George […]

Founder’s Quote

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“How many observe Christ’s birth-day! How few, his precepts!” —Benjamin Franklin (1743)

Founder’s Quote

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” —Thomas Paine (1777)

Founder’s Quote

“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here […]

Founder’s Quote

“No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.” —Alexander Hamilton (1774)

Founder’s Quote

“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to […]

Founder’s Quote

Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech. ~Benjamin Franklin, writing as […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness […]

Founder’s Quote

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the […]

Founder’s Quote

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an […]

Founder’s Quote

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither […]

Founder’s Quote

“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.” —Benjamin Franklin and George Whaley (1774)

Founder’s

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern […]

Founder’s Quote

“Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it […]

Founder’s Quote

“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” —John Adams (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“The jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes […]

Founder’s Quote

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton (1793)

Founder’s Quote

“The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to […]

Founder’s Quote

“But if we are to be told by a foreign power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have independence yet […]

Founder’s Quote

“Judges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not […]

Founder’s Quote

“Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation […]

Founder’s Quote

“The consciousness of having discharged that duty which we owe to our country is superior to all other considerations.” —George Washington (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“We should never despair, our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, […]

Founder’s Quote

“The Declaration of Independence … [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.” —Thomas Jefferson (1819)

Founder’s Quote

“While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the […]

Founder’s Quote

[T]he policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to […]

Founder’s Quote

“If individuals be not influenced by moral principles; it is in vain to look for public virtue; it is, therefore, the duty of legislators to enforce, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Without law, liberty … loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” —James Wilson (1790)

Founder’s Quote

“No compact among men … can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound […]

Founder’s Quote

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?” —Thomas Jefferson […]

Founder’s Quote

“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.” —Benjamin Franklin and George Whaley (1774)

Founder’s Quote

“To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this […]

Founder’s Quote

“He tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and […]

Founder’s Quote

“Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state.” —George […]

Founder’s Quote

“Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government… Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious […]

Founder’s Quote

“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done […]

Founder’s Quote

“Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington (1795)

Founder’s Quote

“If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times […]

Founder’s Quote

“Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Founder’s Quote

“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” —John Adams (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?” —Thomas […]

Founder’s Quote

“Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.” —John Adams (1777)

Founder’s Quote

“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” —James Madison (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“Even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the […]

Founder’s Quote

“The present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes.” —Alexander Hamilton (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they […]

Founder’s Quote

“If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they […]

Founder’s Quote

“War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.” —Alexander Hamilton (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“But if we are to be told by a foreign power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have independence yet […]

Founder’s Quote

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they […]

Founder’s Quote

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have […]

Founder’s Quote

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and […]

Founder’s Quote

“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as […]

Founder’s Quote

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“The duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he […]

Founder’s Quote

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” —John Adams (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” —John Adams (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do […]

Founder’s Quote

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as […]

Founder’s Quote

“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.” —Benjamin Rush (1788)

Founder’s Quote

“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the […]

Founder’s Quote

“No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted […]

Founder’s Quote

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” —Thomas Paine (1777)

Founder’s Quote

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither […]

Founder’s Quote

“Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those […]

Founder’s Quote

“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people […]

Founder’s Quote

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people […]

Founder’s Quote

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people […]

Founder’s Quote

“Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we […]

Founder’s Quote

“Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings — give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! Guard with jealous attention the public […]

Founder’s Quote: Budget

The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to […]

Founder’s Quote

A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here […]

Founder’s Quote

“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” —Benjamin Franklin (1722)

Founder’s Quote

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” —Samuel Adams (1749)

Founder’s Quote

“The Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place […]

Founder’s Quote

“Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.” —John Adams (1777)

Founder’s Quote

“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue […]

Founder’s Quote

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a state than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men […]

Founder’s Quote

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from […]

Founder’s Quote

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither […]

Founder’s Quote

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and […]

Founder’s Quote

“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable […]

Founder’s Quote

“In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle […]

Founder’s Quote

“We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which […]

Founder’s Quote

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.  ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow […]

Founder’s Quote

“Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.” —Alexander Hamilton (1791)

Founder’s Quote

“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” —Thomas Jefferson (1774)

Founder’s Quote

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws … undergo such […]

Founder’s Quote

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.” —Cesare Beccaria

Founder’s Quote

“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the […]

Founder’s Quote

Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man’s nature, and the noble rank he […]

Founder’s Quote

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” —John Adams (1798)

Founder’s Quote

“Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man’s nature, and the noble rank he […]

Founder’s Quote

“His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able […]

Founder’s Quote

“History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” —George Washington (1796)

Founder’s Quote

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands]. ~Thomas Jefferson, Draft Constitution for the State of Virginia — 1776

Founder’s Quote

“If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?” —Benjamin Franklin

Founder’s Quote

“When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.” —Thomas Jefferson (1805)

Founder’s Quote

“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; […]

Founder’s Quote

“On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of […]

Founder’s Quote

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800)

Founder’s Quote: Religious Liberty

It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the […]

Founder’s Quote

“The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

“The pyramid of government-and a republican government may well receive that beautiful and solid form-should be raised to a dignified altitude: but its foundations must, of […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, […]

Founder’s Quote

“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.” —Alexander Hamilton […]

Founder’s Quote: Religious Liberty

There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal […]

Founder’s Quote

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.” —Thomas Jefferson (1787)

Founder’s Quote

“We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk […]

Founder’s Quote

“The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue.” —John Adams (1776)

Founder’s Quote

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” —Benjamin Franklin (1735)

Founder’s Quote

Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention — 1788 This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, […]

Founder’s Quote

“Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the […]

Founder’s Quote

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen […]

Founder’s Quote

“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, […]

Founder’s Quote

“There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our […]

Founder’s Quote

“It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to […]

Founder’s Quote

[T]he policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by […]

Founder’s Quote

“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of […]

Founder’s Quote

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.” […]

Founder’s Quote

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

Founder’s Quote

“Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject.” […]

Founder’s Quote

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among […]

Founder’s Quote

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is […]

Founder’s Quote

“Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose […]

Founder’s Quote

[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. ~Samuel Adams, essay in The […]

Founder’s Quote

“It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to […]

Founder’s Quote

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” —John Adams (1775)

Founder’s Quote

“The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become […]

Founder’s Quote

“Newspapers … serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.” —Thomas Jefferson (1802)

Founder’s Quote

Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. ~Benjamin Franklin, Advice to Young Tradesman — 1748